When Your Kid Ends Up in the Slammer
by Eleisha Cottrell


This is Constable… bzz bzz… at the Victoria Police Department… bzz bzz bzz… inform you that your daughter Tracey is being detained… bzz bzz… pick her up at the station.” The voice on the answering machine barely registered in my sleep-befuddled brain.  It was 1:30 a.m., I’d been asleep for a couple of hours, and it took a few moments for me to realize that the words I was hearing were not just part of a dream. I bolted out of bed and into the kitchen to replay the message, a million thoughts whirling through my head. The police? This was completely unexpected—as far as I knew, my 16-year-old daughter was at a sleepover with several friends, staying up late watching movies, eating junk food and talking about everything under the sun. What was going on?

I think of myself as level-headed, not the type to worry until I know there’s something definite to worry about. But this phone call had me completely rattled. My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding as I listened to a strange voice calmly informing me that my daughter had been picked up by the police.  First things first: I needed to phone back and find out the details. Damn, why hadn’t he left a telephone number; where was my phone book? And where were the non-emergency numbers—why wasn’t the important information on hand when you needed it?

I soon got myself organized and found out that Tracey and her friends had been caught downtown defacing a building (adding their signatures to a graffiti wall). According to the police, alcohol was a factor although the girls weren’t noticeably drunk. They told me to pick up my daughter and we’d find out later whether the owner of the building was going to press charges. I hung up, then realized that I had no idea where the police station was. As I phoned back to ask, part of me thought, Now at least they’ll know we’re not the kind of family that has dealings with the police. Maybe they’ll go easy on her in the interrogation room. Okay, so maybe I’d seen one too many police shows on TV—the offending weapon was a felt pen, for goodness sake! I needed to get a grip on my thoughts and stop over-reacting.

At the station, the police were fairly relaxed when I flew in the door. One of them asked his co-worker which girl was Tracey. Was she the one who was freaking out because her mother was going to kill her? No, that was Shauna, the other cop answered, and the one who wouldn’t stop crying was Kelly. Tracey was the other one.  She’d been picked up by one of the other mothers, I learned. All three girls had been released and the police officers were enjoying a lull in the fight against crime. I was starting to get a sense of perspective on the night’s activities.  While serious, I was beginning to realize that my daughter’s felt pen marks on a graffiti wall were not necessarily indicative of a slippery slope towards a life of crime.

The quiet drive home gave me a chance to do some more thinking. It struck me that it would be nice to have some kind of parenting manual for times like these. If I could just turn to the chapter entitled “When Your Kid Ends Up in the Slammer” it would be so comforting.  Not that I’d likely follow the advice, but it would give me a starting point. When I get hit with something totally unexpected, I often react out of fear or ignorance, and I have found that this is rarely helpful. Things work out better when I’m calm and take the time to assess the situation.

Arriving home, I saw that Tracey had been through the wringer. She was upset, apologetic, disappointed with herself and emotionally drained. There were a lot of feelings to sort through. The last thing she needed at this point was for me to light into her or start lecturing. We both agreed that we’d deal with it in the morning.

I know how lucky we were. This brush with the law was a wake-up call without any serious injuries or damage. Thank goodness we weren’t dealing with something like drug overdose, violence or road racing. These girls were all good kids—they’d pushed the limits without really thinking about the consequences. They’d pooh-poohed the rules, believing themselves to be invincible, as many teenagers do. I was thankful that they were learning some lessons without getting into something really harmful.

Events unfolded after the trip to the police station. Of their own accord the girls wrote and delivered a letter of apology to the building owner and offered to paint the entire graffiti-covered wall. A bit of a blame game began because the two girls who had originally persuaded the others to go downtown had managed to elude the police (and getting into trouble). One parent reacted to the incident by forbidding her daughter to associate with the “inciters” but my view (and Tracey’s) was that anyone who followed along was just as guilty. They were all responsible for their own actions. My requirement for Tracey was to write an essay for me. I wanted her to think about her behaviour, not just shrug the whole thing off as an innocent prank. I wanted to hear her thoughts on peer pressure, alcohol, being responsible for her actions, and what she learned about herself through this incident—I asked for both the negative and the positive because I could see evidence of both.  Apart from learning about trusting her instincts and that alcohol can definitely affect your judgement, Tracey wrote, “Even though it was probably the worst night of my life, I learned a few good things about myself. The first was that I was the only one of us not to run away when the police came. I faced what I had done and didn’t only think about myself and how I could get away. Also, when Shauna, Kelly and I were waiting in the police station, I kept calm and tried to comfort them. I don’t really understand how Robin and Jayne could run away and leave us to deal with things on our own. Friends should be there for each other and support one another in instances like this.  This showed me how I want to be in a friendship and how I want my friends to be.”

I know that my kids won’t follow all the rules all the time. I know this because I didn’t when I was their age. But if they can learn from their mistakes, if they can gain a little common sense and maturity, then maybe it’s worth one of those frightening middle-of-the night phone calls.

Eleisha Cottrell is a Victoria parent who’s busy working on the ultimate parenting manual. The names in this article have been changed to protect the guilty.